I am frozen, can you help me out?

I am an artist. I use art to tell of forgotten realities and promote change.

I used to take inspiration from the news. Every morning, I would pick up the newspaper. By touching it, I feel the people behind the stories. Then at my studio, I would turn to my art papers, and translate what I had read into shapes, textures, stitches and color that spoke of social trauma, human rights, justice, disappearances, war, refugees and climate change. All of these issues are represented within family stories and patterns repeated through history. My art is about the historical and geopolitical circumstances that shape us all in big and small ways. Unavoidably, my art is political.

I used to feel lucky to be reading the newspaper every morning, remembering I was able to immigrate legally to the US from a country in chronic political turmoil, with little respect for human rights; where I woke up every morning feeling vulnerable and powerless. I was fortunate to have come to a kind of “Promised Land,” of superior cultural values, that upheld the rule of law and was governed by democratic institutions.  

After the 2016 election I started to feel differently. I began working at my studio table more urgently. I soon took over every available table in my house. I had so much to say.  I was devastated by the news about hurricane Maria, outraged by pervasive gun violence and mass shootings, I couldn’t stand the cruelty against immigrants and asylum seekers. The killing of black people for no reason was unbearable. I was tormented by the fires in California, and I could not comprehend the deadly mismanagement of the COVID pandemic. I just couldn’t keep up.  

And then, I could no longer tolerate the paper in my hands; not the newspaper nor my studio paper. I cannot read the news right now.  All the tables in my house are now clear. For weeks, I have felt numb. Creative people sometimes get stuck or need to take distance from a project. This is nothing like that. This is pure paralysis.

Since my art stopped flowing, my body apparently decided to speak up. Somehow, I got a labral tear in my hip. My spiritual friend tells me the hip symbolizes the direction we are heading. Something in me has broken. Now I’m full of questions: Did I lose my direction, my equilibrium? Did I lose my trust? Am I becoming fearful, vulnerable and powerless again? 

Upon immigrating to the US, I thought that by living here, somehow, I was immune to the difficult stories I was describing with my art. But now I’m realizing that these stories have caught up to me too. I thought I could run away from a failed country, and was lucky to be welcomed into a successful country. But immigrants are not welcome here anymore. In America, we are not immune after all to fraudulent saviors and demagogic lies. 

Now, I’m starting to feel as vulnerable and powerless as I did in Argentina. American exceptionalism was magical thinking for me, and many of us who want to believe in a better society. We are not exceptional at all. Hate, cruelty, corruption, dishonesty, hypocrisy, economic oppression, racial and gender discrimination are all around us, here and now. Have they always been here or they just surfaced in the last four years?

I’m not sure. But what I do know is that I need to get back to my art. Can you help me out?

Sandra Mayo is an artist who immigrated to the US from Argentina 27 years ago. She lives in Lexington MA with her husband, two sons and 3 chickens.